


Come Home to Me

by Akiko_Natsuko



Series: Stingue [19]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Absence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Friendship/Love, Homecoming, M/M, Minor Character Death, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: “Come home,” Rogue murmured, finding his voice again. “We’re waiting for you.” We want you. We need you. He didn’t add that, feeling as though it might be a little too much at the moment, as he’d heard Sting’s shaky breath as he’d been speaking.“I know,” Sting’s pacing was slowing a little now. “I think that’s the only reason I’ve got through this, is knowing I can come back home.”Absence makes the heart grow fonder, especially when you don't want to be away from home.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Rogue Cheney/Sting Eucliffe
Series: Stingue [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1188727
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23
Collections: Shadowlight Week 2020





	Come Home to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that if you want to talk to me about my fics and writing, or anime/shows/games in general then you can now find me on discord [The Unholy Trinity](https://discord.gg/6sSddAWa5c).

Rogue groaned as the shrill beeping of the alarm clock roused him, eyes still shut as flailed, trying to find the source of the noise so that he could kill…silence it. There was a thud, and a crash as everything else on his side of the bed went flying too, but he stubbornly refused to open his eyes, searching blindly until finally he found it, pressing the first button he came too and sighing as blissful quiet resumed. “Remind me again why we had to get such an awful alarm clock when you never wake up to it anyway?” He grumbled, remembering how Sting had argued they needed to get one they couldn’t sleep through, even though Rogue could count on one hand the number of times the alarm had woken his fiancé. Silence greeted him, but that was usual, and he rolled over, deciding that he deserved a few minutes of cuddling before he had to think about getting up, only to come up short, when his reaching hands found nothing.

_Oh…_

He opened his eyes and looked at the empty half of the bed, his heart falling. For all the times that he complained that the bed wasn’t big enough for the two of them, especially with Sting’s perchance for sleeping with all limbs splayed as wide as possible, he found it echoingly big at the moment. _I forgot,_ he thought as he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, one hand falling into the spot where Sting usually slept.

That was the fourth time this week he had woken up and forgotten that he was not only alone in bed, but home alone, as Sting had needed to go visit his family after his uncle had passed away. Sting had been reluctant to go, to say that he had a strained relationship with his uncle was putting it mildly, and Rogue had wanted to go with him, even if the one encounter he’d had with Jiemma had made him want to move them both to the far side of the world. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to get cover for work, so here he was, home alone and hating every moment of it. Especially as Sting’s plans to go and come back the next day had been foiled by a storm causing damage to part of the railway line, and when he had spoken to Sting the night before they were still working on repairing the line and his partner had been trying to find an alternate route home.

As though summoned by his thoughts, his phone chimed, and more awake this time, he rolled over and discovered it was one of the things he had knocked to the ground. He rescued it, along with the picture of the two of them that had also fallen victim to his flailing, fingertips lingering on Sting’s smiling face for a moment before he settled it back on the bedside table and turned his attention to the phone.

**Are you awake?**

Rogue stared at it for a moment, before smiling at the message. Sting must be missing him too if he was up this early, and he typed a quick confirmation, just as there was movement at the end of the bed as Lector sprang up onto the end and meowed at him. Rogue waited, and just as the phone in his hand started to ring, there was more movement, the covers being pulled away from him as Frosch scrambled up on top and promptly collided with Lector who flicked his tail at Frosch before moving up the bed. Shaking his head at their antics, Rogue answered the phone. “Good morning.”

_“What are they up to?”_

“Huh?”

 _“I can hear the smile in your voice,”_ Sting replied, and Rogue pinked, even though he could hear the amusement in his fiancé’s voice.

“They’ve just come to tell me it’s breakfast time,” he replied, reaching out to stroke Lector who had settled in Sting’s spot in the bed, looking displeased at finding his human was missing. Frosch rubbed against the outstretched arm, before climbing onto him and curling up with a rumbling purr. “Lector isn’t happy that you’re not here.” _And neither am I,_ he thought but didn’t say, knowing that Sting wasn’t any happier about it than they were and not wanting to add to his stress.

 _“I know.”_ There was a softness to Sting’s voice that told him that he had caught the unspoken words. “ _I miss you too.”_ There was a flurry of voices in the background, and Rogue couldn’t make out the words, but the tone had him tensing, and he was unsurprised when Sting cursed. “ _Give me a moment.”_

“Sure.”

Rogue listened intently as there was a heated discussion, wishing that he could hear what was being said, but Sting seemed to have put his hand over the microphone to muffle it further. It didn’t stop him from recognising his partner’s voice, raised in irritation or because he was upset before there was the sound of a door slamming, hurried footsteps – or at least that was what Rogue thought it was – and another door opening and slamming. Then there was a pause, and the sound returned as Sting sighed down the phone. _“Are you still there?”_

“I’m still here,” Rogue pushed himself up against the pillows, the cats complaining as they had to resettle around him. “What’s going on? That sounded…”

 _“Bad?”_ Sting asked hollowly, and Rogue frowned. _What the hell is going on?_ He knew that Sting didn’t get on great with many of his family and had fallen out of touch with a lot of them since his father – whom Sting had loved fiercely had passed away – but this sounded like something more. _“I want to come home,”_ Sting said finally after a moment, and Rogue opened his mouth wanting to demand a better answer before it occurred to him that it probably wasn’t the best place for Sting to be talking about it.

“Still, no trains?” He asked instead.

 _“Not yet, but they said they should be running by midday,”_ Sting replied. He was pacing, Rogue could hear the steady beat of his footsteps. _“Even if they’re not, I’m leaving this morning. I-I can’t do this.”_ The admission was like a punch to the gut, because Sting had been doing his best to be cheerful whenever they’d spoken. Even if Rogue had been able to hear the strain in his voice. For him to be so frank about it was unsettling, and Rogue gritted his teeth, wanting to rail against anyone that would make his partner feel like this.

“Sting…” He didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t like that. Sting always seemed to know what to say, and Rogue loved that about him, but now he wanted to return the favour, and his mind was empty. Desperate he looked at the cats, Frosch sprawled across his lap, paws batting at the air and Lector curled into his side, staring at him or rather the phone pressed to his ear with wide eyes as though he knew exactly who was on the other end. “Come home,” he murmured, finding his voice again. “We’re waiting for you.” _We want you. We need you._ He didn’t add that, feeling as though it might be a little too much at the moment, as he’d heard Sting’s shaky breath as he’d been speaking.

 _“I know,”_ Sting’s pacing was slowing a little now. _“I think that’s the only reason I’ve got through this, is knowing I can come back home.”_ Rogue was warmed by those words. _“So, besides missing me and having to deal with the cats, how have things been?”_ It was a plea for normality, as Rogue had already filled him in on his day the night before, but he wasn’t about to deny Sting anything right then, and he cast his mind around for something that he hadn’t shared.

“Oh, did I tell you Laxus and Freed have started making plans for their wedding?” He asked, and on a negative reply, he launched into the conversation he’d been sucked into the second night that Sting had been away when Yukino and Minerva had dragged him out to dinner with the group so that he wouldn’t ‘mope’ at home. And they spent the next fifteen minutes just chatting about it, and he managed to startle a laugh out of Sting when he informed him that Freed was intent on picking his brain about some of their plans.

Eventually, the conversation petered out a little, and the cats were pawing at him and yowling for their breakfast more demanding than before. But Sting sounded much more like himself. _“Go and feed them. I’m going to pack and get the hell out of here, and I will text you when I know what’s going on.”_

“Okay,” Rogue looked at the empty half of the bed, and added softly, fervently. “I love you.” He knew that Sting knew that, but he wanted to remind him, to give him something to buoy him until he was on his way home, and he knew that it was appreciated when Sting replied just as softly.

_“I know I love you too.”_

****

Rogue had been on edge all morning, continually checking his phone for any updates from Sting. He knew that his partner had left his aunt’s house, and that the trains had been delayed again and that he was trying to see if he could get a train or bus even to another town, where he could find a different route home. But it had been a couple of hours since he had last heard from him, and it was making him antsy. Yukino, bless her heart, tolerated it with nothing more than an eye-roll and stern order to watch what he was doing after he’d nearly caught himself with the scissors, letting him work in the back while she handled the front shop. He had a feeling that she had also messaged the others, and that if Sting didn’t make it back tonight – something he really didn’t want to think about – then he would find himself being roped into an evening with them. Usually, he would have appreciated it, but he was worried about Sting had he wanted him home.

Lunch passed, and he barely touched the packed lunch he’d made for himself. He’d also text Sting half a dozen times, called him a few times and left at least one voicemail message without getting a reply. _Where is he?_

The afternoon crept by. Rufus stopped by for some flowers for his latest date, and to catch up on gossip, and for a little while at least Rogue was distracted, promising the other man that they’d let him know the next time they went out as a group. Then as expected Minerva had rung to invite him for dinner, in a tone that he had long since learned was not to be argued with. And still, there was no word from Sting, and Rogue was getting really unsettled now because he knew how much his partner wanted to get home. 

It was nearly closing time when he heard the bell on the front door go again after almost an hour with no customers, giving them a chance to catch up with orders and paperwork, and Rogue was tidying up in the back. He didn’t pay much attention, guessing that it was some unfortunate soul rushing in for a last-minute bouquet, which meant something from the tubs out front, rather than something that he was needed for. He heard Yukino saying something, her voice a little higher than usual – probably someone she knew then, and she tended to know everyone in a way that he had yet to master, and he sighed as he heard the bead curtain to the back shop rustle. “Yukino, it’s too late for me to make…”

“I’m here to pick up something better than flowers…” Rogue whirled, knocking over half the display that he had been tidying, and nearly tripping over the broom.

Sting was stood just inside the room, looking exhausted and stressed, but with a broad smile creeping across his face as Rogue blinked at him. “Has that line ever worked for you?” He blurted out, not knowing what else to say, startled and delighted when Sting laughed – not the strained laughter from their phone conversations, but one that was real and warm, like sunlight coming out from behind a cloud.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” he replied, and Rogue’s control snapped as he rushed across to him, and straight into waiting arms as Sting yanked him into a hug that was just a little too tight for comfort. He wasn’t about to complain though, leaning in to kiss him, as he hugged him back. It felt like coming home, even though he wasn’t the one who had been away, and when Sting all but melted into him, something in his stomach unclenched, and it felt as though he could breathe properly for the first time in days.

“I missed you,” he murmured when they separated, still holding each other close. This close, it was impossible for him to miss the shadows beneath his partner’s eyes, or the hurt in his eyes and his arms tightened protectively. “And I think I was going to have anarchy from Lector if you didn’t make it back tonight.” He wanted to ask how he’d got back, and why he hadn’t let Rogue know what was happening, but those answers could wait as Sting blinked at him, weary and drained in a way he hadn’t seen before, and Rogue kissed him again. “Welcome home.” Sting sighed, as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and his eyes were suspiciously bright as he replied.

“I’m home.”


End file.
